A woman got an eraser stuck in her ear for 12 years — here's what it looked like when she finally got it out

The INSIDER Summary:

A woman said she had a piece of an eraser stuck in her ear for 12 years.

She finally fished it out using a pimple-popping tool and posted a photo of the extracted eraser on Reddit.

PSA: You should never stick metal instruments or even Q-tips in your ears.

Warning: This post contains a graphic image.

A woman on Reddit said that she had an eraser fragment in her ear for more than a decade — until yesterday, when she finally fished it out. Now, photographic evidence of the extraction is captivating members of the /r/popping subreddit.

On Tuesday, Redditor Queen_Semiramis uploaded a photo to the subreddit with the title, "12 years ago I put a piece of eraser in my ear. I got it out yesterday."

INSIDER reached out to Queen_Semiramis, who said that she put the eraser in her ear while bored at school.

"I was bored in 4th grade in class and was enjoying putting pieces of eraser in my ear and taking them out again," she told INSIDER. "I put one in my ear, and then I didn't come out. I was like, 'oh s---' but didn't tell anyone because I was afraid of doctors. I thought it would fall out eventually on its own, but it didn't. I knew there was something in my ear, but didn't quite believe it was the eraser."

In the post's comments section, she explained that she used a comedone extractor — the same metal tool Dr. Pimple Popper uses to unclog pores— to finally dig the eraser out of her ear canal. She had tried to remove the eraser previously, but this latest attempt was the first time her efforts came to fruition.

"It was itchy all today so I grabbed a metal zit popping tool and stuck it in there and too [sic] my surprise it just fell out," she wrote. "Could not believe it."

The eraser came out covered in earwax. Here's how it looked:

When a commenter asked Queen_Semiramis how it felt to get the wax-covered eraser out, she replied with just one word: "AMAZING." ("I now can sleep on that side comfortably," she told INSIDER,"[whereas] before I could feel the eraser poking into my ear when I laid on it.")

Queen_Semiramis's story has a happy ending, but her method of dealing with the eraser is not exactly ideal.

First (in case it's not obvious) you should absolutely not leave a foreign object inside your ear for that long. Second, if you do feel something stuck in there, even if it's just a ball of earwax, seek out a doctor's help to remove it. Doctors have pro tools and techniques that gently remove stuck objects.

Whatever you do, don't try to scoop things out using a Q-tip or pimple-popping tool or any pointy instrument. Dr. Mark Vaughan told INSIDER back in August that Q-tips are too large and too blunt a tool to effectively remove blockages in the ear canal. Plus, whenever you stick an instrument in your ear, you run the risk of damaging your eardrum.